


Monotony

by auroralynches (teresavampa)



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: F/F, Fluff, No Plot/Plotless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 00:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5184743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teresavampa/pseuds/auroralynches
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trouble with being psychic, Orla considered, was that it made life awfully predictable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monotony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jellybabiestomanual](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jellybabiestomanual/gifts).



> It's Megan(helensgansey on Tumblr)'s birthday, so I wrote her this fic! Go tell her happy birthday!

The trouble with being psychic, Orla considered, was that it made life awfully predictable.

The other women at 300 Fox Way would swear this was untrue, of course. Maura would insist that the future was more ambiguous than it seemed, while Calla would growl that simple common sense could be held far more accountable for predicting coming events than any tarot reading. Her mother Jimi would say that Orla’s troubles were more to do with a negative attitude than her psychic abilities, while Gwenllian would screech some poetic nonsense and Blue would tell her not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

None of this would have dissuaded Orla, of course. Call it psychic intuition or logical thinking, but either way, she could see no changes in the monotony of her life approaching any time soon. Her life was blurring into a mindless cycle of psychic readings and house chores, each day indistinguishable from the last. Ever since Blue had begun college and unofficially moved into Monmouth Manufacturing--technically her bedroom was still her own, but it was now simply a rest stop full of bare essentials rather than the crowded expression of Blue’s personality it had once been, and the kitchen fridge’s yogurt population had experienced a dramatic drop-off--she and her boys had begun coming around to Fox Way much less frequently than they once had. With no teenagers to embarrass, Orla had very little in the way of entertainment in the house proper. The only notable moments in the last few dull months had all been bracketed by a thunderous helicopter or a silver Audi, a sleek head of dark hair, and a pair of soft pink lips.

Presently, Orla was ruminating on all of this while standing in the middle of the Phone/Sewing/Cat room and staring vacantly out the window to the street below. She’d gotten up intending to retrieve tea and herbs from the kitchen to carry her through the midafternoon fatigue, only to be distracted by a passing car that she had mistaken, just momentarily, for the orange Camaro that ferried Blue to and from the house. The phone rang, snapping her from her reverie. Sighing, Orla fell back into her chair with an apocalyptic crash, composed her features, then picked up the handset and said in a husky, knowing voice, “Psychic hotline.”

“Is that really the voice you use on customers?” Helen Gansey asked amusedly on the other end. The raise of her impeccable eyebrows and the wrinkle in her forehead were audible even over miles of phone line.

“You’d be surprised how well it works. Why are you calling the hotline instead of the house phone?” Orla responded in a more normal register, dropping the psychic voice as soon as she realized who she was speaking to. In a counterintuitive sort of way, she and Helen had no pretenses with one another; they were unnecessary when they both know the other would see straight through them anyways. Pulling one leg up under herself, Orla sat up straighter and tucked herself more closely against the wall.

“I got a new phone and lost that number,” Helen said breezily.

“For someone whose job depends on contacts and dates, you sure are bad at keeping track of those things,” Orla observed, not unkindly. She did not point out how casually Helen treated things like new phones and lost information. Nor did she point out that Helen went through more phones in six months than Orla even owned. They both knew these things were true, and Orla didn’t hold them against her anyways.

Helen laughed. This was not her elegant, intimidating laugh that she wore around her clients or her mother’s politicians. This was a warm, throaty chuckle reserved solely for her parents, her brother, and now apparently for Orla. “It’s my one great weakness,” Helen said. “My career surges forward on my passion for nosing around in other people’s lives, only to be borne back by my inability to keep a calendar or address book together for more than three months. So I beat on, boats against the current and all that.”

Orla rolled her eyes. _Okay, Helen, we all read_ The Great Gatsby _in high school._ When Blue had first taken up with the younger Gansey, Orla had found him too pretentious to take seriously for very long, and she had wondered how Blue managed to bear it. Now, however, she understood the appeal. The Gansey siblings had an undoubtedly affected and snobby-sounding manner of speaking, but they were so endearingly clueless of it that it became more of a lovable quirk than the grating parade of condescension she’d originally been braced for. “You talk like that and then you wonder why people around here look at you funny,” she teased.

“And here I thought they were simply jealous that I’d seduced away the prettiest girl in town,” Helen said innocently.

“Last I checked, you haven’t seduced _away_ anything. I’m still here, aren’t I?” Orla made no attempt to keep the preening out of her voice. Helen’s compliments always made her feel odd and warm inside, like something sweet was bubbling just under her ribcage.

“And whose fault is that?” Helen challenged. “I did tell you that you should move to DC, you know.”

In fact, Helen had told her that several times, at least once during each of her last three visits. Orla had always said no. Her reasoning, or at least the reasoning she’d shared with Helen, was that she wasn’t about to uproot her entire life for a relationship that was barely a year old, but the stronger, truer reason was one she’d kept to herself: that she wanted Helen to see Henrietta as more than just some scrap of dirt and forest that happened to contain Orla and Dick Gansey III. To Orla, Henrietta was like a good guest room--not a home, per se, but a place to feel comfortable and safe all the same. She wasn’t going to pretend she held some vast and deep affection for the town the way Helen’s brother seemed to, but she nonetheless wanted Helen to respect it, because her not respecting Henrietta felt uncomfortably close to not respecting her.

But none of that was fun, and Orla was determined to wring the most fun possible out of Helen’s dollar-a-minute phone call without traumatizing the six- and eight-year-old second cousins playing in the hallway outside the open door. Steering the conversation back to their original topic, she taunted, “I don’t know how you would be able to remember whatever new phone number I’d wind up with in DC if you can’t even remember my current one.” Then, because she was in a merciful mood, she repeated the regular house number to Helen rather than making her try to guess it.

“You are, as ever, a lifesaver,” Helen said. Orla could hear the efficient scribble of a pen as she took down the number to put into her phone later. “So, if I’m paying a dollar a minute for this call, I should at least get my money’s worth. So, what color is your--”

“There are children present,” Orla cut across with a warning tone.

“Don’t be vulgar, I was going to say nail polish.” There was a sort of smirk to Helen’s voice that silently but clearly telegraphed that she had not been about to say nail polish.

Orla flexed the fingers on her free hand and examined her nails critically. “Matte gray with gold splatter,” she responded, “but they’re chipping. I’ll have to repaint them soon.”

Helen clucked sympathetically. “Well, do it before Saturday,” she advised. “I’m taking you up to DC to meet my parents.”

For a moment, Orla was certain she’d just had a stroke. She felt a surge of adrenaline crash over her and struggled to keep her voice even as she choked out, “You’re what?”

“Taking you to meet my parents. Did you not hear me?”

Orla realized her grip on the phone was slick with cold sweat. “No, I--I heard you,” she managed.

Helen, seemingly oblivious to Orla’s nerves, continued normally, “That’s actually why I called in the first place, although you did a damn good job of distracting me. I figured that since I had met your family so many times, you and my parents deserved a proper introduction. I realize that technically you already met when we came down for Dick’s graduation, but--”

“Oh, God, please don’t remind me,” Orla pleaded, closing her eyes in embarrassment at the memory. That first and thus far only collision of the Gansey and Sargent families had been one of the most disastrously awkward days in the history of 300 Fox Way, and possibly in the history of Henrietta, Virginia.

Helen laughed. She still found the entire encounter far more amusing than was really necessary, in Orla’s (who was no stranger to schadenfreude herself) opinion. “I thought that--which one’s the scary woman? With the muscles and the colorful lipstick?”

“Calla.”

“Yes! I thought that Calla was going to rip my mother’s head off when she found out she voted against that bill for health services funding.”

“I’m glad she didn’t. Not because I disagree with Calla,” Orla clarified, “but because I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been able to ask you out that day if my aunt’s friend had just murdered a member of your family.”

“That would have rather put a damper on things, yes,” Helen agreed. “Although given how bold you were in asking me out, I’m rather surprised to hear that something as minor as homicide would have deterred you.”

Orla shrugged, unabashed. “People always say you should buy someone a drink first before you ask them on a date. I was just following the rules.”

“I suppose offering me red wine in a mug with your phone number written on the side at two in the afternoon does honor the spirit of the law, if not the letter,” Helen conceded.

Propping the phone against her shoulder and cheek, Orla twisted a chunky ring on her index finger and once again circled the conversation back out of its distracting tangent. “So what do you want me to wear on Saturday?” she asked, already knowing that nothing in her wardrobe would measure up to the tailored dresses and sleek skirts that Helen and her mother favored.

“Anything you want, provided it’s not too revealing. You know, dress casually, just look presentable to a pair of conservative, middle-aged parents.” Helen did not have to clarify that this eliminated approximately 90% of the clothes Orla owned; she had once described her girlfriend’s fashion sense with a mix of horror and admiration as “strong evidence that the 1970s never truly ended”. Orange bell bottoms, paisley tie tops, platform sandals, and maxi dresses were all in robust attendance.

“Stripper skirt and an Obama ‘08 crop top, got it.” Helen laughed again. Orla grinned, her whole body alight with nerves and excitement. “I’m glad you called,” she confessed. “Nothing really seems to happen to me when you’re not around. I’ve been bored.”

“Really? I’d never think you were the type of person to lie around the house consumed by ennui,” Helen said.

Orla considered telling her that she was lonely. She considered admitting that she missed not only Helen, but also Blue and her raven boys. She considering acknowledging that, even though she wanted Helen to respect Henrietta, she was getting a little tired of the place herself. She considered telling her that no one used _ennui_ in casual conversation.

What she said instead was, “It’s not easy in a house this crowded, but I manage,” and “You’re tying up the phone lines, some poor lost soul is probably trying to get their fortune told and can’t because my damn girlfriend forgot my phone number _again_ ,” and “I love you.” Helen confirmed that it was mutual and hung up with the silence that comes with cell phone calls. Orla stood, stretched, and again considered the future. Meeting Helen’s parents in D.C., she decided, was a reasonable change of pace in her routine. Of course, when she told her family about it, she would almost certainly run the risk of being crushed under their _I told you so_ s and _weren’t you just complaining that nothing ever happens to you?_ s, but that was a risk she would just have to take.

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like a day so I'm sorry that it's kind of unedited and meandering and comes to a super abrupt end. Helen and Orla are surprisingly hard to write--they're canonically a little bit annoying and mean, and you've got to find the right balance between that and their nicer sides.
> 
> Anyways, go tell Megan happy birthday if you haven't already!


End file.
